Update: Uganda – Death To Homosexuals

Last month I wrote about the law that was being proposed by the Uganda legislature, making repeated homosexual acts punishable by death. The New York Times just ran a story about the bill.

Americans’ Role Seen in Uganda’s Anti-Gay Push
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

KAMPALA, Uganda — Last March, three American evangelical Christians, whose teachings about “curing” homosexuals have been widely discredited in the United States, arrived here in Uganda’s capital to give a series of talks.

For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”

Now the three Americans are finding themselves on the defensive, saying they had no intention of helping stoke the kind of anger that could lead to what came next: a bill to impose a death sentence for homosexual behavior.
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Instead, Uganda seems to have become a far-flung front line in the American culture wars, with American groups on both sides, the Christian right and gay activists, pouring in support and money as they get involved in the broader debate over homosexuality in Africa.
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“I feel duped,” Mr. Schmierer said, arguing that he had been invited to speak on “parenting skills” for families with gay children. He acknowledged telling audiences how homosexuals could be converted into heterosexuals, but he said he had no idea some Ugandans were contemplating the death penalty for homosexuality.
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Mr. Lively and Mr. Brundidge have made similar remarks in interviews or statements issued by their organizations. But the Ugandan organizers of the conference admit helping draft the bill, and Mr. Lively has acknowledged meeting with Ugandan lawmakers to discuss it….
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“What these people have done is set the fire they can’t quench,” said the Rev. Kapya Kaoma, a Zambian who went undercover for six months to chronicle the relationship between the African anti-homosexual movement and American evangelicals.

Mr. Kaoma was at the conference and said that the three Americans “underestimated the homophobia in Uganda” and “what it means to Africans when you speak about a certain group trying to destroy their children and their families.”
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Uganda has also become a magnet for American evangelical groups. Some of the best known Christian personalities have recently passed through here, often bringing with them anti-homosexuality messages, including the Rev. Rick Warren, who visited in 2008 and has compared homosexuality to pedophilia. (Mr. Warren recently condemned the anti-homosexuality bill, seeking to correct what he called “lies and errors and false reports” that he played a role in it.)

The radical Christian right wing conservatives are no longer satisfied in pushing their, lies, hate, bigotry and homophobia here in the United States, but now they are exporting it to third world countries with disastrous results.

When I was little and went to Bible study, I was taught the Jesus was compassionate, tolerant, loving and understanding. But somehow, these radical Christians have perverted his message into hatefulness, vengefulness and a message of exclusion.

I believe that the vast majority of Christians do not believe what the radical Christians are preaching. That they are a small vocal minority that preaches this hate. I believe that the vast majority of Christians are open and affirming and I recognize that some are struggling with the issues of marriage equality and gay, lesbian and transgender priests and ministers. But at least they are examining their beliefs and are trying to understand